After an environmental disaster, the arctic regions of Scandinavia have become a wasteland, a battlefield for the army and rebels' guerrilla troops. A bunch of crooks with motorbikes, lead by 'Duke', is terrorizing the civilians. An escaped prisoner, Jake, has personal reasons for killing Duke, and he gets help from the locals, including a girl suffering of amnesia and a harmless nutcase. The time for payback is to come, but Duke has decided to strike first.

Trailers:

Review:

'The last border' may not be good science fiction. It reminds me of Mad Max, although the plot is different for sure. Not everything is completely logical, but I must bring up a few points. The movie was filmed somewhere in northern Scandinavia, and obviously they didn't do much to change the way the vegetation looks like. To be a post-apocalypse world, it looks slightly too "normal". On the other hand, if there was no vegetation, there would be no people either. So I would say the landscape does indeed look as realistic as it can. I just wonder what the people eat, as most of the reindeer seem to be gone.

On the previous comment there was a question raised about clothing. The pretty dress seen in the movie is a traditional Lappish costume - the kind of dress you might very well find from those regions, even after an environmental disaster. So most of the things match, although obviously this movie was made when people still believed the oil is going to last forever. So eager are the biker boys to waste fuel driving around with no purpose.

Anyway, the movie itself is slightly boring. The idea of a solitaire man seeking for revenge has been used many times. I would say that Kaurismäki intentionally recycles some of the basic ideas of classic westerns. On the other hand, there are clearly characters and scenes that seem to be very similar to those in Mad Max. (Althogh I can't make a difference between the three.) It is not a bad idea. The only problem is, there is not enough to happen. Most of the characters just hang around pointlessly. Some of them do have potential, but nothing really comes out of it. Kari Väänänen at least is really enjoying himself, and Matti Pellonpää has a few funny lines.

What I really like about this movie is the image it gives of an ultimate macho culture. The biker boys look childish and ridiculous, like a bunch of school kids playing war on the backyard. They don't look tough but just stupid, just like real-life low-forehead -type of crooks.

It is a bad movie in a way, but on the other hand... I somehow like it more than average science fiction. Maybe it is just because the landscapes are familiar.